What is your field of study? I work on the history of imperialism, internationalism, Germany, East Africa, and I have a growing interest in the history of Public Health.

What is your favorite class to teach? HIST 1428. I love teaching the Gen Ed course that exposes students to what historians do for the first time in their college careers. I enjoy helping students make global historical connections to what is going on in the world today.

What are you excited about this semester? I am excited to be starting here at CSUB!

What was the last book you read? The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by paleontologist Steve Brusatte (2017). It’s important for scholars to read books outside of our own fields from time to time to get a sense of the cool stuff others are working on.

What was your worst subject in school? Math. My kid sister is a Statistician, ironically.

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?A documentary on the history of the Tendaguru expedition, a German paleontological dig that took place in what is now Tanzania from 1909 to 1911.

What do you do for fun and relaxation? My wife and I play lots of very complicated board games. I also garden, go fishing, and go hiking with our dog.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students? Do not be afraid to ask questions! Professors LOVE questions.

What did you do over the summer break? I was working on researching and writing my second book, I went on several trips to visit family and friends, and I ate lots of good BBQ (most of which I prepared. KC Style Ribs are the best!)

What is your field of study?Religious Studies.What is your favorite class to teach?The Holocaust and its Implications, although my original field is religion, literature, and philosophy in America. I miss teaching classes in nineteenth-century American thought.What are you excited about this semester?Working with our first-year Honors students in the Honors seminar. I like students so I’m excited about all my classes. My goal is to blow their minds with exciting ideas and new insights.What was the last book you read?Babylon Berlin for entertainment and The Emerson Museum: Practical Romanticism and the Pursuit of the Wholefor scholarly work.What was your worst subject in school?Math, but I was good in other sciences and did autopsies in high school and medical research in college.If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?I have two: the spiritual experiences of farmworkers; or the attitudes of young Germans in Berlin towards Holocaust education and inherited guilt.What do you do for fun and relaxation?Eat out with friends, go for walks, and travel.Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students?It’s not your IQ but your “I will.” I’ve seen many students who have greatly transformed themselves through hard work and intellectual curiosity. I also strongly advise students to study abroad. Get out of Bakersfield and see the world!What did you do over the summer break? In June, I studied at the United States Holocaust Museum in a faculty seminar with scholars from all over the world. The subject was racial theory and practice in Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South. It was a fantastic experience studying the comparative history of racism and its relevance to the contemporary world. In July and August, I was in Europe. I spent a week in London and Florence each going to great art museums. I also did some hiking north of London in the Cotswolds region for a week, and then I spent a month in Berlin taking in the history and just hanging out.

What is your field of study?American literature, with sub-specializations in the novel, romanticism, and the literature of the American West.

What is your favorite class to teach?A course called “American Renaissance,” which deals with the major authors who wrote between 1830 and 1865: Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe. We always end with my favorite, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

What course are you excited about this coming semester?Modern drama, which is one of our genre courses for both English majors and upper-division GE students. We’ll read absurdist plays by Ionesco and Beckett, as well as plays in the expressionist, naturalist, and realist traditions by Ibsen, Strindberg, Williams, O’Neill, Shepard, and Wilson. I love to show clips of important scenes and one or two complete plays. The reading experience and the viewing experience are complimentary but distinct. I like to emphasize and encourage both.

What was the last book you read?Read two in short order in the last two weeks, Albert Camus’s The Fall and Larry McMurtry’s The Last Kind Words Saloon.

What was your worst subject in school?Kind of the typical response from an English teacher—math.

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?I think I would explore how environmentalist themes influence the literature of the American West, in authors such as Wallace Stegner, Cormac McCarthy, Louise Erdrich, and Edward Abbey. I’m really interested in how competing notions of environmental concern, from Deep Ecology to contemporary post-humanist conceptions, find their way (sometimes directly and sometimes obliquely) into various novels, short stories, essays, poems, and plays. This topic would lend itself to many great visuals.

What do you do for fun and relaxation?I’m lucky enough to work doing what I enjoy most. So I read and attend plays and concerts regularly. But I also like to take walks, hikes, and various rambles with my wife and our new pup, Sam (short for Samwise Gamgee, Frodo’s loyal friend in Lord of the Rings).​Of course, I live for occasional visits from my grown kids, Melissa and Thomas. Sip a drink, make a meal, chat about anything and everything.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students?Think of education as exactly that, education, not training. Self-actualize for gods-sake!

What are your plans for the Summer Break?With my family, I’ll head to Ashland, Oregon for our annual one-week trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Ashland is a lovely place where we all feel at home. This is our fifteenth consecutive year.Mostly I’m working, though, editing a collection of essays on Cormac McCarthy for Cambridge University Press, which I hope to complete by September, and doing the initial research for a book I’ll write for Cambridge as well.​

What is your field of study?American studies, with specializations in Latina/o history, comparative race and ethnicity, popular culture, and sociology of sport.

What is your favorite class to teach?I love teaching Chicana/o history and Latina/o studies. I am excited to develop new courses to offer CSUB students, particularly through the lens of Chicana feminisms, critical race theory, critical sport studies, and global social justice.

What are you excited about this semester?On a teaching level, I’m excited that my students and I start most classes by reciting In Lak’ech, a poem resurrected by Luis Valdez, founder of El Teatro Campesino and Professor Domingo Martinez Paredes. It’s rooted in Mayan epistemology. I attended the fourth annual Xixanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing last October, where I learned how educators can adopt Indigenous Epistemology into their curriculum.

What was your worst subject in school?Math, mostly because my 6th grade pre-algebra teacher didn’t have enough patience for my learning needs. By the time I got to Geometry in high school, I had tapped out. I’d rather just listen to Mathematics instead.

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?Archiving the amazing and creative ways that CSU-students, since the 1960s to the present, have organized and advocated for quality public education. As someone who worked with Students for Quality Education while finishing my CSUN undergraduate education, I’m a strong believer in student-led social movements and collective resistance for social justice and “the people’s university.”

What do you do for fun and relaxation?I like to run and go boxing. I’m not good enough to get in the ring yet, but it makes for amazing cardio. I also enjoy going on hikes and random adventures with my wife and having playtime with our two cats.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students?

Take your education into your own hands.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Visit your professors during office hours.

Get involved in a student club/organization.

Run for ASI, or local government.

Consider applying to graduate or law or medical school; your education does not have to stop after you get your B.A.

And don’t you dare forget about your community!! We need you.

What did you do over the winter break? The winter break was jam packed with family time and hanging out with friends. I’m looking forward to summer break for those same reasons.

What is your favorite class to teach?That's so difficult! I love every course I teach, but RS 3368 (Women, Religion, and Sexuality) probably comes out on top. I had the privilege of taking the class with Dr. Liora Gubkin as an undergrad at CSUB. It was my favorite class as a student and remains my favorite from the teaching side.

What are you excited about this semester?I have 7 classes this semester, so I'm excited to get to know all of my students and finally memorize everyone's name!

What was the last book you read?The Power by Naomi Alderman. I couldn't put it down.

What was your worst subject in school?Math, certainly! I wasn't terrible at it, but my heart always gravitated towards writing. Terrible procrastinatinator with the math homework.

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?I'd like to say the modern American Women's Spirituality movement, but my students know I'm probably more likely to make a makeup tutorial.

What do you do for fun and relaxation?I hang out with my partner, Nick, and we watch every television show ever, I chase my toddler, Finn, around and around, and I eat cheese.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students?You're probably going to get tired or discouraged at some point in your college career. When that happens, persevere! I get to see you everyday and read your writing and hear your brilliance. You're right where you're supposed to be. Remember that.

What did you do over the winter break? I rewatched the entirety of Doctor Who. I also ate a lot of cheese.

What is your field of study? I’m the Western Religions guy at CSUB (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Native American Religion). My scholarship is in early Christianity and specifically in early Christian monasticism.

What is your favorite class to teach? My favorite classes are Christianity, Native American Religions, and Explorations in Scripture (Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an).

What are you excited about this semester? My classes are going great! The students are very talkative and they teach me.

What was the last book you read?I’m usually reading 3-4 books; right now A Spool of Blue Thread by the wonderful American novelist Anne Tyler; Brokenness and Blessing: Towards a Biblical Spirituality, by the British scholar Frances Young; The Polkinghorne Reader: Science, Faith, and the Search for Meaning, by an eminent astrophysicist and theologian; and The Collected Poems of Richard Wilbur, one of my favorite poets.

What was your worst subject in school? Economics! The only class I ever got a “C” in!

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be? I’d do one on the homeless on our streets in Bakersfield, to show that they are suffering human beings whom most of us ignore.

What do you do for fun and relaxation? I garden and read—and (weird) translate Greek and Coptic into English.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students? I know we’re a working-class school; many students work, often full-time, care for families, AND go to school. I admire them immensely. Students, as much as possible, start your assignments early. Don’t procrastinate!

What did you do over the summer break? I had my first extended vacation in 10 years last summer. Miriam (my spouse, who teaches in History) and I went to Italy and Greece for two weeks!

Please meet Mariah Garnett from the Art & Art History department. What is your field of study?Visual Art

What is your favorite class to teach?Time Based Media

What are you excited about this semester?My students are making some really great artworks in video, sound and also in my Art 1009 classes.

What was the last book you read?I Hate The Internet, by Jarrett Kobek

What was your worst subject in school?Trigonometry/pre-calculus

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?I'm making a documentary right now about my dad who was politically active in Northern Ireland in the 1960's.

What do you do for fun and relaxation?Going outside even though I'm not super rugged. Watching my dog run around.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students?Life is long but also short. Don't waste your time worrying about doing things wrong. Just do them and enjoy as much of it as you can. Also, turn in your homework even if it's not perfect. Pretty much the most important thing about college is the friends you make.

What did you do over the summer break? I did a residency at the Macdowell Colony for the first part of the summer and took a job shooting second camera on a documentary web-series all over Asia for most of August. We went to Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Okinawa, Jakarta and Singapore.

What are you excited about this semester?I'm excited to be working with new colleagues and students. And I'm excited to begin my role as Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics.

What was the last book you read?The Grapes of Wrath (again)

What was your worst subject in school?Math, as I had some intimidating educational experiences in that area as a child. I've since learned to appreciate that field much more, thanks to some helpful educators.

What is your secret talent or hobby?I play guitar and I'm a beekeeper.

If you had to make a documentary, what would the subject be?Children who have been instrumental in political movements throughout history, and whose stories are rarely told.

What do you do for fun and relaxation?I love to hike, play and listen to music, swim in the ocean, and be with good, friendly folks.

Do you have any advice or thoughts for our students?You are an inspiration. Keep up the great work, and reach out for help when you need it.

What did you do over the summer break?I was on a research fellowship in Verona, Italy for the first half. I did research, spent time with family, and moved cross-country in the second half. All in all, a good summer!